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Copyright of Japanese Sociological Review / Shakaigaku Hyoron is the property of Japan Sociological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper reveals the historical background to the word and concepts of 'shido' and considers the social meanings that the word and concepts of 'shido' have expressed in the context of the wartime period, especially by extracting and analyzing the discourses dealing with the word and concepts of 'shido' in educational discourses from the Meiji period to the period immediately after the war. The idea exists that school education in our country had distinct pre-war and post- war periods due to educational reforms in the occupation period, and we have often seen assumptions based such periodization in this field of studies. However, in the overemphasis on the self-evident view that there was a 'break' between pre-war education and post-war education, we have overlooked events in the educational history of our country. This paper has therefore picked up the word and concepts of 'shido' among the educational phenomena of Japan. The paper's objective is to demonstrate the historical background (origin and spread) of 'shido' and to analyze the social meanings (status and function) that the word and concepts of 'shido' have been given by Japan society, especially in the wartime context. I believe this paper has obtained the following conclusions (1) and hypothesis (2): (1) The word 'shido' goes back to the Meiji period, and the 'shido' paradigm, as a recognition framework understood by the word and concepts of 'shido,' was established in the wartime period. (2) The 'shido' paradigm has conditioned education and society in Japan, since, as norms themselves, attitude requests included in 'shido' elicit response practice to 'shido,' i.e. as an 'increase in educational response' to an 'increase in educational attitude.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The institution of school has several stakeholder sides. This paper directs attention to the relations between the two sides of the 'school and teachers' and the 'parents.' These relations have been formed concerning school education and responsibility. This paper analyses specific features in the history of the modern school system in Japan, such as 'the scheme of non-repetition of the same grade in compulsory education' and 'the image of teachers who sacrifice themselves for their pupils.' This scheme and image were rather paternal and performed two functions in the relation formed between the two sides. One was that each school and teacher obtained a degree of trust and authority from pupils and their parents. The other was that each school and teacher was positioned at the frontage of the school system. This trust, authority and positioning may have served each school and teacher in overcoming relational difficulties concerning school education. After the Second World War, this relation has been reconstructed in several dimensions. In present-day Japan, the frontage position causes each school and teacher to become the target of criticism from parents and the people, and so it has become possible for the central bureaucracy of education to avoid criticism and to appear as a fair agent for educational reform. In recent years, some educational reforms targeting schools and teachers have suppressed the pedagogic practice of each school and teacher. This paper discusses the reconstruction of these undesirable situations and relations at two points. One is that mutual criticism between the two sides should be replaced by a sharing of social realities and difficulties. The other is a proposition to exchange the self-assessment of educational policy and reform for the construction of an independent assessment scheme. These two reforms might guide the formation of a new relation between the side of the 'school and teachers' and the side of the 'parents'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze non-academic, alternative visions of sociology through their relationship with homemaking courses and investigate the scope and issues in sociology. With this end in view, the paper first discusses the nature of homemaking courses. The process starts with an inquiry into home economics, which serves as an academic background to homemaking. The paper then seeks to address this inquiry by analyzing the position and problems of sociology to identify and resolve issues in the course of homemaking itself. In ancient Greece, home economics occupied a legitimate position as a practical (political) science for males. Between then and the modern era, it was an area of study designed for family heads, that is, men. However, from the modern era onward, home economics reverted from being a male-oriented discipline to being a female-oriented one. With theoretical developments revolving around life politics, a central theme of Anthony Giddens's modernity theory, sociology came to be considered a potential source of power in creating a new recognition of home economics as a field in which both women and men (humanity) initiate reforms in modern society. The scope of sociology lies in its ability to cross over into home economics, giving home economists the potential to reform this field of study. This potential grants homemaking education, backed by home economics, the capacity to foster practical life skills in children in the form of reflective selection of lifestyles and to enable them to aim for social reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology has been peripheral to the field of medicine in Japan. This paper is largely based on the author's experience of teaching sociology in a medical school in Japan. The paper analyzes why the two disciplines are irreconcilable and discusses how sociology can be involved in medicine and medical education. The discussion in this paper will be threefold. First, the paper will point out the incongruence between the medical sciences in medical school that are extremely biomedicine oriented and sociology that largely deals with the social construction of disease. How and to what extent the conflict between the two disciplines can be resolved will be discussed in the paper. Second, the paper will focus on how medical school education is institutionalized as well as controlled by the government, which might leave little room for sociology. Given this, the paper will consider how sociologists can become more involved in the education of medical doctors. Third, the paper will examine how and to what extent sociologists are able to deal with the sovereignty of medical doctors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, temporary layoffs leaves of absence by of teachers owing to illness have been on the rise in our country Japan. While many previous studies have attempted to explain this phenomenon, few have provided achieved concrete results. In this paper, I point out that this is because teachers have hitherto not been viewed as government employees. Thus, this paper studies the above phenomenon by while considering teaching as a form of educational labor. A brief description of the four main features of this paper is provided below: 1) I examine the teacher-client relationship as a clue to for understanding the concept of caring. This concept refers to considering someone as important and attending to his/or her needs. Nurturing is an activity that was traditionally performed in various communities and was interpreted in the same way as caring for family members. Today, relationships that involve nurturing activities can still be observed between teachers and students, to the extent that they have become an integral part of occupations in modern times. This is the reason that emotions and feelings are regarded as important in educational relationships and discussions. 2) I show that the concept of emotional labor is useful in studying the teaching profession. This concept focuses mainly on the emotional relationship between an emotional workers and their a clients. However, more importantly, it shows that in the modern service sector, an the employer exploits employees not only through physical labor but also through emotional labor, and the teaching profession is not an exception. 3) The Japanese government has promoted carried out educational reforms guided by neoliberal and quasimarket ideas as a part of public employee reforms. Through these reforms, the government has strengthens strengthened its control as an employer over the teaching sector. It urges the has urged prefectural boards of education to make efforts to establish a new teacher evaluation systems and to improve the existing teacher appointment systems. Teachers are expected to work as members of a bureaucratic organization rather than a professional organization. 4) Furthermore, the teaching profession faces a big major problem: there is no group or organization that can protest against the exploitation of teachers, as can be seen from the failure of the teachers' unions. Thus, this paper argues that both teachers and researchers in this field should need to realize open their eyes to the actual situation wherein teachers work as public employees. Further, researchers in the field of educational sociology researchers should make theoretical contributions so that teachers are can gain the abilityable to understand their working conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper elucidates the process of socialization in a class of three-year-old children in a kindergarten as a local practice performed by class members. Classical studies of socialization have examined the process of socialization only based on the simplified logic that "learning norms". This paper reveals the process of "school socialization" as detailed everyday practices. By analyzing the interaction between the members in a kindergarten class, this paper reveals four things, as follows. First, adjacency pair, a form of "repetition pair," is used for accomplishing the task of transmitting propositional knowledge and maintaining classroom order. Second, DRE (direction/response/evaluation), a adjacency triple, is used for accomplishing the task of transmitting school norms such as "sitting looking toward the blackboard" and producing-maintaining classroom order to facilitate the later work of knowledge production. Third, the school norm of "sitting looking toward the blackboard" transmitted through the DRE method is constituted by a "blend" of propositional and know-how knowledge. Fourth, DRE is used in situations that involve all the kindergartners, and thus differs from QRE (question/response/evaluation), which is frequently used toward a single learner. These procedures of "repetition pair" and "DRE" provide important insights for studies of socialization because they demonstrate one of the root aspects of socialization, "scholastic socialization" as "socialization toward socialization," and simultaneously, these procedures provide suggestions for studies of classroom practices that are not revealed by capturing classroom interactions only as QRE and agency triple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recent vigorous debate concerning the necessity for further increases in educational expenditure, the basic questions "Is Japan's spending on education really low?" and "Does money matter?" have never been examined analytically in Japan. The main purpose of this paper is to carry out a quantitative analysis of the effect and efficiency of educational expenditure in Japan and other developed countries. The paper consists of two parts. Firstly, using OECD expenditure data, I examine the conventional indices concerning educational expenditure and compare Japan and other developed countries using an alternative index. Secondly, I evaluate the effect of expenditures on secondary education and the inefficiencies of OECD countries by employing a stochastic frontier model. The following are the main results of the analyses. As to the comparison, there are some problems with the conventional macro indices such as educational expenditure per student, the educational expenditure- GDP ratio and the educational public expenditure-general public expenditure ratio. I employ the alternative index of Ram (1995) using the residuals of simple linear regression and compare the level of educational expenditures in OECD countries. In terms of primary and secondary education, the level of educational expenditure in Japan is close to the average of developed countries, and is therefore not much inferior to that of other developed countries, contrary to the recent claims concerning public education. The productivity of educational expenditure is evaluated in the light of two points: mean level and equity. The output indices of mean level and equity are estimated by the fixed-coefficient regression of the PISA data. The main analyses are conducted using a Bayesian semi-parametric stochastic frontier model which assumes no particular functional form concerning the effect of expenditures and the particular distribution concerning the inefficiencies. In terms of the mean level, an increase in educational expenditures has some positive effect. However, the production function is concave, and therefore there is a tendency for the effect of additional units of expenditure to diminish. The effect of educational expenditure on equity is neither monotonous nor strong. The estimated inefficiencies of each country tell us that there is a considerable gap between best practices and educational practices in many countries, and that the Japanese educational system is relatively efficient in mean level output and inefficient in equity output. These results imply that increasing educational expenditure requires further careful examination and discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores school effects in Japan, using a Multilevel Model Analysis. "School Effects" consider how schools can affect children's learning outputs. This is one of the important subjects in the sociology of education. Since the Coleman Reports of the 1960s, there has been much research investigating school effects all over the world. This is termed "School Effectiveness Research" (SER). Recently, SER researchers are planning comparative studies within countries, and this research has considerable attraction. Unfortunately, very few researchers in Japan knew about SER until 2000. Pioneers in SER in Japan are Nabeshima and Shimizu. They investigated school effects using the concept of "Effective Schools" conceived by Edmonds, one of the most famous early SER researchers. Japanese SER researchers argue that "Effective Schools" are characterized by "teacher cooperation," "leadership," and "good classroom climates." Finally, they conclude, "If all schools had these characteristics, social disadvantage would be less than at present." However, the concept of "Effective Schools" in Japan is problematic, and thus we need to reanalyze carefully the conclusions of pioneer SER research in Japan. In this paper, I firstly point out the lack of the concept of "Effective Schools" and propose a Multilevel Model Analysis (Hierarchical Linear Modeling) to analyze school effects. Secondly, I investigate school effects in Japan using the Multilevel Model Analysis, and analyze academic achievement tests at 5th grade conducted in Z City in the district of Kansai. The sample size is 3,366 children from 43 schools and explanatory variables are achievement score at 4th grade, children's gender, and children's cultural social class. The findings are as follows. Firstly, almost all the variance in academic achievements at 5th grade exists within schools. There is small variance between schools. Variance between schools is less than 5 percent. Secondly, the most important explanatory variable affecting achievement at 5th grade is achievement at 4th grade. The most explanatory variables following this are children's gender and cultural social class. Thirdly, although the variance between schools is very small, there is a score gap of 5 to 6 points between "the most effective school" and "the most ineffective school." Thus, there are very small score gaps between schools, but this does not mean that schools have no effect on the alleviation of social disadvantage caused by gender or social class. We draw the following conclusions from this analysis. First, junior high schools in Japan have very similar learning environments, and so there are only small score gaps between schools. Secondly, the prior achievement score has a very strong effect on achievement score at the 5th grade level. Investigating school outcomes without taking prior achievement scores into account is therefore very problematic. In Japan, few argue the importance of prior achievement tests, but this is a critical point for the analysis of achievement scores. Thirdly, it is important that researchers of SER in Japan understand that there is only small variance between Japanese schools and argue seriously about "what schools can and cannot do." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With globalization, the number of people migrating internationally has increased considerably. This phenomenon is also evident in Japan. For example, in the past five to six years the number of newcomer migrants to areas such as Aichi prefecture has surpassed the number of foreign residents living in areas such as Osaka that have long traditions of attracting migrants. These changes in migration patterns have created new challenges for Japan's education system. This paper considers these challenges by addressing the following questions: Has the Japanese Ministry of Education developed an adequate education policy to accommodate children of different ethnic backgrounds? While it appears evident that the Fundamental Law of Education must be revised, does the Japanese government comprehend the changes that have occurred in local environments, the household, and schools to the extent needed to enact useful change? In this paper, the author addresses these issues by considering various educational challenges that global migration has brought to Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we look into the future of Japan from the viewpoint of education policy, one critical issue is the changing composition of the country's population. The advent of an aging society combined with a low birthrate has had a prolonged and serious impact on Japan's entire education system. This paper, based on a full reflection on the history of the reorganization of school districts carried out throughout Japan in the postwar period, aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between education policy and the population issue. The main body of this paper consists of the following five parts. The first introduces the background of the study. The second depicts changes in the school-age population and projections into the future. The three phases of the reorganization of school districts, namely the municipal reorganization (cho-son gappei) phase, the phase of extreme population decline (kasoka) and the low birthrate phase, are described, and detailed analyses are conducted regarding these three phases. The fourth part, using Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo as an example, analyzes conflicts concerning the reorganization of school districts in central urban areas. The fifth part is an analysis of the "school selection system" and school districts. Based on the analyses, the following conclusions are drawn. The school institution, as one of the most popular and high-quality forms of social capital, has since the Meiji era become a symbol connecting individual residents living in local communities. However, many school districts have been destroyed during the process of reorganization and the only criteria for closing a particular school is the lack of financial efficiency. The education policy and population issue are closely interrelated, and the decision to close schools has caused great damage to local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Japanese Sociological Review / Shakaigaku Hyoron is the property of Japan Sociological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper attempts to portray the composition of education and responsibility in the "bullying problem." According to Durkheim and Foucault, the "responsible subject" is produced through modem school education as the apparatus of discipline. That is, "responsible subjects" cannot exist in the "community" of pre-modern society. In the "bullying problem," the mechanism explained is that a pre-modern "community of the pupils" is reproduced in the school, and this explanation has been accepted by society. That is, from the viewpoint of the Constructionist approach, the social system talking in terms of the discourse of "bullying problems" has replaced the social system that talks in terms of the discourse of "school violence problems." The figure of the "responsible subject" has been made to disappear and the figure of the "community" has reappeared in its place. From such a viewpoint, the "bulling problem" can be portrayed in two ways. First, it is portrayed as the terminal point of the "schools as a enclosed environment." The schools, as mere "enclosed environments" that no longer function as apparatuses of discipline, once again reproduce the "pre-modern community." Second, the limitations of the "school" can be seen as a phenomenon which occurs in Deleuze's "society of control." In the societies of control, various "enclosed environments" would be disorganized and a seamless system of control would need to be organized. Thus the concept of "accountability" would be emphasized instead. The modernist concept of "responsibility" and the figure of the "individual" would be disorganized to "dividuals" that would form a new kind of "community" in information networks. Forecasting such a transformation of the social system through the "bullying problem" would be an important role for sociology to play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to show how the fiction of "Children" has been constructed in modern systems such as education and juvenile justice. From the late Meiji era to the late Taisho era, modern systems were formed which treat small, young people as "Children" and enclose them in the educational system, which is accompanied by the juvenile justice system for dropouts. "Children" have been seen as a kind of subject, although not "adults," that reflect upon their inner beings. The educational system has seen as a system that observes and channels them. In parallel with this change, juvenile justice has come to treat "children" in a special way that balances responsibility-punishment with protectioneducation (correction). Recently, many authors have expressed the diagnosis of the "disappearance of childhood," since children are no longer regarded merely as the objects of protection and education, but are rather the subjects of action and responsibility in the context of juvenile crimes or children's rights. However, arguments concerning "children" have long taken place on the subject of "children's subjectivity vs. adult control" or "protectionism vs. liability". Recent arguments have ended in merely the revision of the Juvenile Act or educational reform, and not with the dismantling of the juvenile justice system or the educational system. We should never play with the anxiety of the "disappearance of childhood," which might cause an overheating of social defense or result in the creation of difficulties for "adults" in their relationships with children. Instead, the construction of places or practices to avoid such a scenario is important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When some event is regarded as a problem, a trial to investigate the cause is initiated. Generally, the purpose of investigations into causes is thought to be for the purpose of understanding the outline of problems and to solve them, as well as to discover who is responsible for them. That is why excessive investigations of causes sometimes trigger confusion and even a tragedy. In this paper we attempted to clarify what reality the discourse practice lead by the understanding that responsibility is based on causes has brought about by comparing two social problems, ijirne jisatsu (bullying-related suicides) and Minamata disease, which seemingly have no relation to each other. In the process we first made it clear there are logical contradictions in the understanding that responsibility is based on causes by examining the logical relationships between "cause and effect relationship" and "responsibility" from four viewpoints; will and responsibility, age and responsibility, category and responsibility, and chance (luck) and responsibility. At the same time we analyzed how the discourse has been practiced in investigations of causes and the pursuit of responsibilities in our society and pointed out an inconsistency between the practice and the understanding. To describe the difficulties brought about by the inconsistency, we focused on the structural similarities observed in ijirne jisatsu and Minamata disease. Finally we suggested two types of possibilities for overcoming the difficulties brought about by the understanding that responsibility is based on causes. One is a possibility of how the idea of strict liability (the no-fault liability principle) could be applied. The other is the possibility of reorganizing the discourse of responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to clarify how educational and occupational expectations of students are conditioned by school track under Japanese school-to-work linkage. We compare Japan to the US and Germany, which have specific characteristics of school-to-work linkage of their own according to the literature. Our analysis is based on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data collected by OECD. Using indicators from the literature, we can define the institutional characteristics of each country as follows: all the indicators are high in Germany, and low in the US, but in the case of Japan, the indicators for stratification and standardization are high, while vocational specificity is low. From the patterns of these indicators, we construct hypothesis about the effect of school track on students' educational and occupational expectations in each country. From our analysis, we can see that tracking in Germany strongly affects the educational and occupational expectations, while tracking in the US did not strongly affect either expectation. In Japan, school track strongly constrained educational expectations, but not occupational expectations. These results can be consistently interpreted as a consequence of different school-to-work linkages in these countries explained by using three indicators above. Therefore, we can conclude that we succeeded in clarifying distinguishing characteristics of the school track effect on student expectations in Japan compared to the US and Germany in relation to the institutional differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines secondary education in Japan from a sociological perspective. To begin with, I consider the significance of the theme of sociology in secondary education, and provide three reasons for conducting such an analysis: the importance of sociological education from an international perspective, the possibility of the development of sociological pedagogy, and the contribution of Japanese sociology to secondary education in general. Second, I illustrate the marginalization of sociology within the secondary school curriculum in Japan, by examining the guidelines set and its treatment by the Ministry of Education, Culture. Sports, Science and Technology. I suggest three reasons for this marginalization, namely, the characteristics of sociology as a discipline, a general indifference towards the subject at the institutional and administrative level, and a lack of collaboration between educators involved in social studies education and those involved in sociological education. Sociological pedagogy has been proven effective in the fields of both comprehensive study and experiential learning used to help social problems. After reviewing several studies in teaching sociology, which discuss the integration of sociological education into service-learning, I consider the application of this new pedagogy to the secondary education curriculum or introductory-level sociological education in Japan. Further, I examine society's perception on social studies education in relation to the development of the education of the global citizen or the influence of the changing structure of contemporary society. I then argue that sociology can contribute to the learning and development of communality and sociality and in diverse areas outside the sphere of traditional social studies. Finally, I suggest that it might be especially significant for the future of Japanese sociology to promote further study of sociological education in secondary education in order to support its practice at the institutional level and engage more positively in educational administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to clarify the changes in the relationship between parents' and their children's educational attainments under educational expansion. Although education is one of the most important variables in social stratification research, the detailed qualitative relationships between parents' and their children's educational attainments were unclear except that the children were more likely to be highly educated if their parents were also highly educated. There is no established theory about the value of educational credentials of specialized training colleges or two-year junior colleges during the period of educational expansion. Therefore, in order to consider the three-way relationship (father, mother, and respondent) of simultaneous educational attainments, I created the predominant pattern of educational attainments with the latent class analysis using SSM-Japan 2005 data. In addition, I employed multinomial logit latent class analyses to clarify the social backgrounds of each latent class. As a result, regardless of cohort and gender, three latent class models fit the data well. These latent classes generally supported the hypotheses that inequality had been maintained during the period of educational expansion and that the educational expansion actually implied the changes in the threshold of progression to higher education because the distribution of ascendancy to the progression to higher education had been stable. In addition, the three latent classes were clearly distinguishable on the basis of fathers' occupation and cultural property. Most male and female graduates from specialized training colleges belonged to the class of high school graduates, and although junior college graduates belonged to the class of university graduates in the beginning, these two graduates were later separated into different classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine the concept of "local pedagogy" in two middle schools in relation to the socioeconomic background of their school districts. Further, it aims to clarify the impact of social class culture on the "consummatorization of schooling." I selected two middle schools located in a single city, and continued fieldwork research for two years in the first school, which I have called Kitachu. and for four years in the second, Nanchu. There is a relatively large number of middle-class students at Kitachu. and Nanchu has a large number of working-class students. At each school, the teachers understand that their students and their parents have special characteristics. Students of Kitachu are careful about human relationships and often negotiate with the teachers, and the requirements of their parents toward the school are sometimes stiff. At Nanchu, the students are friendly, honest and compliant toward authority, and their parents' demands for accountability are not strict. Based on teachers' understanding of their students and parents, the teachers construct a different "local pedagogy" in each school. In, Kitachu, the teacher-student relationships are not close and teachers avoid coercing students or giving them orders. By contrast, in Nanchu. the teachers tend to take the initiative and teacher-student relationships are very close. In other words, a "consummatorization of schooling" is taking place in Kitachu, but not in Nanchu. These differences can be understood as follows. First, post-modern changes such as marketization and contemporary rules about human relationships began to spread especially among middle-class people. As a result, there are differences between social classes regarding how they bring those values into schools. Second, "local pedagogy" in Japanese school is constructed through compromises between teachers and their students' class cultures, thereby facilitating the "consummatorization of schooling." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore the background of Singapore's contemporary policies for school dropouts. Singapore's educational system has often been described as being based on the concept of meritocracy (Mimizuka et al. 2003, Kang 2005). According to Young (1958), in a meritocratic society, rewards and social status are distributed based on individual merit. Interestingly, meritocratic Singapore has increasingly attempted to include school dropouts, who are supposed to have lower merit. This should be even more puzzling when we consider that Singapore has already achieved a low school dropout rate compared to other developed countries. Although it is reported that there are about 1,200 students who leave school before finishing secondary education every year, this phenomenon has been very little investigated even in Singapore. Sim (2005) focused on the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), which provides vocational education for post-secondary students in the lower streams, and found that the aspirations of ITE students were lifted during the school period. However, Sim's study did not shed light on school dropouts. This study examines the following two research questions: 1) Why does Singapore attempt to include school dropouts in further education? 2) How does Singapore help school dropouts return to school? The data were gathered from the following investigations. The first is semi-structured interviews of social workers who work at Singapore's social agencies, where various kinds of assistance are provided for school dropouts. Interviews were conducted with fourteen social workers in nine social agencies. The second is a review of past local research on Singapore's school dropouts, which is not so well known due to a lack of publicity. In addition, Singaporean national census data and information from local newspapers were also used in this study. Based on the analysis, the author insists that there are three primary reasons behind Singapore's contemporary policies for school dropouts: 1) a political reason, 2) a social policy-related reason, and :3) a labor economic reason. Clark (1960) demonstrated that "losers" under a meritocratic educational system are likely to "cool-out" so that they become adjusted to their appropriate social position in later life. On the other hand, Singapore's school dropouts tend to "freeze-up" and then fall into bottomless cracks in later life. Once they have "frozen-up," they may be stigmatized as "losers" in the meritocratic educational system and then marginalized in the precarious labor market. To overcome this situation, Singapore has attempted to enhance political stability and the social cohesion of the state. Moreover, school dropouts are encouraged to return to school in order to compete with cheaper migrant workers in the labor market. In summary, Singapore's success in reducing the number of school dropouts can be looked upon as an outcome of Singapore's effort to enhance political stability, social cohesion and economic growth so as to tackle increasing external uncertainties. In this sense, Singapore's top academic performance among school students, despite the fact that more school dropouts are integrated into the mainstream, can be viewed as a process involving a state strategy of survival under the highly competitive, globalised economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the latter half of the 1990s, new expressions have appeared concerning ability in labor and education. These expressions of ability do not only reflect the transformation of the contemporary dominant ability model. The expressions themselves are social processes, and they are social practices that structure the dominant ability model anew. From these points of view, this paper will analyze expressions of ability as a social practice, and examine and consider the social significance of the expressions of ability empirically. As a result of the analysis, the following points were extracted. Firstly, the routine of magazine editing is a reflexive process which incorporates trends from all different forms of media. Therefore special features on business ability are produced based on trends from these media. They consequently reflect the dominant ability model that precedent studies have described. Secondly, in special features on business ability, company managers and office workers of well-known organizations frequently appear as the embodiers of the ability. In addition, experts that have specific dispositions frequently construct, define and rate the ability. Thirdly, in these special features, specific "relationships to oneself' are frequently seen. The relationships are that transformations of character and emotion into ability, based on self-monitoring and self-control, assist in engaging oneself positively and maximizing the potential nature of the self. These are psychologized "relationships to oneself." Such monitoring, control, engaging oneself positively, and maximization of potential nature, are an intention for the whole process of labor. These special features on business ability seem to be a transient trend, but it is clear that there are various aspects of cultural arbitrariness involved. It may be said that one of the tasks of the sociology of education today is to prepare a blueprint based on a comprehensive theoretical framework of such cultural arbitrariness and the actual situation. In this article, I show that Bourdieu's theoretical framework of symbolic struggle is one such framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entry rate into the elite of university graduates who graduated with honor was higher than that of other graduates in Japan in the pre World War II period. What kinds of effects can explain this phenomenon? Three possibilities can be considered to explain it: first, honor graduates may be more successful in any job, so that there would naturally be a correlation between the university adaptability indicated by high grades and vocational success; second, they might have found it easy to gain sponsorship from established elite groups because of their honor grades, even if there were no necessary correlation between college grades and vocational success through severe competition; third, they may have found it easier to enter vocational sectors which were more accessible to the elite. The aim of this paper is to clarify how these three possibilities worked to create elites in the pre-war period, sampling mainly Summa Cure Laude graduates from Tokyo Imperial University. The main findings are as follows: (1) it is clear that Summa Cum Laude graduates entered jobs which were more accessible to the elite, such as Imperial University professorships or prestigious government positions; (2) they were more successful in whatever job they entered; (3) however, it is obvious that the Summa Cum Laude graduates received some special treatment in becoming Imperial University professors and were sometimes given advantageous positions and experiences as government officers, despite the fact that the competition for high elite positions in private companies was based on merit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One premise of studies on the Japanese university participation rate is that there have been three stages: expansion, stagnation, and re expansion. A second premise is the prefecture is used as the unit to determine whether students have moved upon entrance to university. However, the prefecture as a measurement unit does not always coincide with the zone from which students can attend university from home, or "the hometown." Therefore, using data from the "Student Life Survey" of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. this study directly measures the ratio of members of the 18 year-old cohort who entered university from home, and the ratio of those living away from home (19681998). In this paper, the former is called the university participation rate from home, and the latter the university participation rate from away from home. The finding is that for girls, the university participation rate &ore home has risen fairly consistently. This is important knowledge for the first premise of studies on the university participation rate. It appears that the reason why preceding studies have not given a successful explanation of the university participation rate of girls based on economic variables, whereas that of boys has been successfully explained, is because the cost of movement has not been considered. Therefore, this study confirms the effect of the cost of movement, and clarifies the difference of the determining factors of the university participation rate from home according to gender or university location. Furthermore, this study confirms a difference between girls and boys for each economic variable effect including the movement cost effect after controlling for factors peculiar to university location. The results are that the limiting conditions are more sensitive in large cities than in rural areas, and that girls are more sensitive to the limiting conditions than boys when controlling for the factor peculiar to the area. This suggests the reproduction of the composition where "girls remain in the local area, and boys move out." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]